Obstruction of justice. Intentional interference in interstate commerce. Securities fraud. These are but a few of the "embarrassment of riches" that U.S. Attorney for New Jersey Paul Fishman has at his disposal "when it comes to choosing which charges to level

Left unmentioned is that similarly vague statutes, under which most any behavior can be construed as criminal, are at the disposal of every prosecutor if they choose to go after you.

Any American who seriously thinks they go a single day without doing something a prosecutor couldn't charge them for is deluding themselves.

I may be getting too cynical, but I'd bet that this a-hole (amongst many equally corrupt politico-scum) never sees a single day behind bars.

I'd love to be wrong, but this guy has connections, and money, and that means he owns the legal system to some degree. Unless they have written (and I doubt he's that stupid) or secretly recorded evidence, I'm betting that this guy will sell out his underlings who he ordered to do the criminal activity with the usual politician "I had no idea that my bad bad bad underlings were up to no good!" routine.

These are not vague, arbitray statutes. The laws in question are quite old, and include such gems as "federal charges of extortion under the Hobbs Act", "securities fraud and conspiracy to commit same", and "intentional interference in interstate commerce and -- in the cover-up that ensued -- obstruction of justice". These are not non-crime "crimes" that people commit every day by a long shot.

The reason Christie is at risk of going down while the banksters and other big-shots have not in recent years are complicated, but key are the facts that Christie has a lot of enemies, esp. among democrats as he's a nasty shit, that the crimes are easy to understand, and probably the most important one -- a U.S. attorney was assigned to the case. I know it sounds ridiculous, but in the case of the housing bubble and the massive mortgage and securities fraud at the heart of it, the FBI and Justice Department internally redefined the fraud to only exist where a homeowner lied on her loan application. This is what happens when you partner with the Mortgage Bankers Association, as the FBI did, to root out mortgage fraud. It would be funny if it wasn't so damned tragic. There are lots of reasons why the banksters still have gone down and I don't want to oversimplify, but another important reason is that when politicians commit crimes they don't have a corporation to hide behind. But the main reason they've consistently avoided prosecution is Obama. He's a better friend to these fucks than W ever was. Its really that simple. He has protected them at every step of the way, for crimes related to and committed during and after the housing bubble right up to the drug cartel money laundering cases of last year.

I can see that many people are frustrated that this is taking so long. Just remember it took three years to finally bring down Rod Blagojevich. Many people were saying the same things about him. He'll get off, everybody does it, what's the big deal. 14 years behind bars, that is the big deal.

Jeffrey Howard Archer, Baron Archer of Weston-super-Mare (born 15 April 1940) is an English author and former politician. Before becoming an author, Archer was a Member of Parliament (1969–74), but resigned over a financial scandal which left him almost bankrupt. Later, after a revival of his fortunes from the royalties of his best-selling novels, he became deputy chairman of the Conservative Party (1985–86) before resigning after another scandal, which would lead to the end of his career in e

Jonathan William Patrick Aitken (born 30 August 1942) is a former Conservative Member of Parliament in the United Kingdom for 24 years, and a former British government Cabinet minister. He was convicted of perjury in 1999 and received an 18-month prison sentence, of which he served seven months. He is currently president of Christian Solidarity Worldwide. Aitken was also a member of the Privy Council of the United Kingdom. Aitken's parents were Sir William Traven Aitken, KBE, a former Conservat...

David Michael Chaytor (born 3 August 1949) is a former British Labour Party politician, who was the Member of Parliament (MP) for Bury North from 1997 to 2010. He was the first member of Parliament to be sentenced following the United Kingdom Parliamentary expenses scandal of 2009. On 2 June 2009, he announced that he would not be standing for Parliament at the next general election. On 3 December 2010 he pleaded guilty to charges of false accounting in relation to Parliamentary expenses claims a...

Tom (Thomas) Wise (born 13 May 1948, in Bournemouth) was an Independent and UKIP Member of the European Parliament (MEP) for the East of England. A former police officer, he was elected in 2004 as a member of the UK Independence Party but later had the whip withdrawn when allegations of misuse of parliamentary expenses surfaced in The Sunday Telegraph. Following an inquiry carried out by the European Anti-Fraud Office, Wise was formally charged with false accounting and money laundering by Bedfor...

The delicious irony here is that Christie was the worst kind of federal prosecutor. No crime was too small or insignificant to warrant prosecution, provided the intended target had sufficient media value. Christie would then have his media lapdogs trumpet the "significance" of his zealous overprosecutions.

Christie's narcissism and sociopathy virtually assure that this story will become even more interesting. A variety of factors, including his heart finally succumbing to his massive weight, may keep him from ever seeing the inside of a federal prison, but in many ways Christie reminds me of another corrupt NJ prosecutor, Nick Bissell, who took his own life in lieu of facing the music.

By re-routing the Port Authority funds to local New Jersey roadway repairs, Christie, who took office in 2010, was able to keep a campaign promise not to raise taxes. The diversion of funds allowed him to avoid raising gasoline taxes to refill the depleted coffers of the state’s transportation trust fund.

But the justification for the diversion may have constituted fraud. The SEC’s rule 10b-5, issued pursuant to the Securities Exchange Act, authorizes the agency to investigate fraud in the securities markets, including in the offering of tax-exempt bonds. Similar laws apply in New York state.